He spent two summers in remote St. Mary's, Alaska, teaching health and safety to native villagers. He worked in a high-security bank vault in Portland, handling millions of dollars in cash. He was a grocery store clerk. He refereed soccer games.

Today the Portlander is a site supervisor for before and after-school programs at Forest Park Elementary, but when people at parties ask him what he does, none of his jobs are applicable. What Jay Flewelling really does is tell stories.

The local comedian has appeared in several high-profile shows around town lately, most notably his popular "Comedy Grab Bag" series at Action/Adventure Theater and live variety radio show "Live Wire." This month he'll star in an original one-man show, "Work Schmerk," in which he'll share tales of the odd jobs he's worked behind the scenes.

But behind the stories of remote Alaska ("If you can get there, you can get there, but you're not welcome there") and high-security bank vaults ("Nobody knows what a million dollars actually looks like") is an underlying frustration with how we define "work."

"Why is it when we go to a house party, when people say, "What do you do?' we answer what our job is, what we do for money?" Flewelling said. "That is kind of the question."

The sparse and simple show, directed by Second City alum Caitlin Kunkel, is a big departure from Flewelling's "Comedy Grab Bag," which combines sketch, improv and standup in a monthly multimedia bonanza with a sizable team of local talent.

It's an effort to shift from standup comedy to comedic storytelling, he said. It's a path that has proven successful for the comedian, who has won two Moth StorySLAMs and appeared in big Portland storytelling shows like Knock Knock.

"Work Schmerk" is a culmination of all of his performance efforts – from standup to improv to storytelling – as well as his work in all those day jobs that have paid his bills over the years.

"It feels like a life's work," Flewelling said. "Once this show's over I feel like, if I could just quit or just die, it would be OK."